


it hasn't stopped being the same

by gealbhan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Meet-Cute, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, a prose-form hc dump really, bg iwaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: Oikawa Mei meets a hairstylist on a train, and things devolve from there.
Relationships: Kageyama Miwa/Oikawa Tooru's Sister, Oikawa Tooru & Oikawa Tooru's Sister, Oikawa Tooru's Sister & Takeru
Comments: 11
Kudos: 123





	it hasn't stopped being the same

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you write 9.5k about an oc and a character who has appeared in so few panels that she might as well be an oc falling in love, and that is okay. the timeline is a bit messy because the timeline in canon is also messy, so if this gets jossed, well. i tried!
> 
> title from "i.d." by go! child ft chi-chi. enjoy, i guess!

Oikawa Mei is, by most standards, a boring person.

For all the intrigue that her life story presents—daughter to a half-Korean divorcée, elder sister to the resplendent former captain of Aoba Johsai’s volleyball team and current professional volleyball player, teen mother to a burgeoning tween following in his uncle’s example—she does very little with it. She works two jobs to support herself and Takeru. She keeps her head down and her worries tucked inside her chest. She rides public transportation to and from work because it’s cheaper than keeping a car.

That’s what she’s doing now, half-asleep as the train rocks around her. Her blase stare is settled on the screen of her phone. She taps at a game with almost mechanical movements; it’s some time-wasting thing that she’s not all that invested in but can’t put down now. Sometimes she reads instead, but it’s nearing sunset and her eye prescription is out of date. Nothing is playing in her earbuds, but the appearance of them diffuses any unwanted interest.

Or at least, it should. It’s only as she’s drawing nearer to her stop that she notices the feeling of being watched. Not baseless, either, as when Mei lifts her head, it’s to meet the intent gaze of the only other person on this section of the train: A pretty girl (well, young woman) around her age, expression flat and messy black hair tousled to frame her face. Everything else about her is neat in a way Mei has never been able to pin down herself. Neat makeup, neat clothing, neat posture. Neat life, probably.

Mei tugs her earbuds out. “Can I help you?”

The woman startles. “Oh, I didn’t mean to be rude,” she says, her voice scratchier than expected but not unpleasant. “You have beautiful hair—that’s all.”

“Thank you?” Mei’s voice comes out cautious—it isn’t like she’s used to hearing such compliments on the train.

“I style hair for a living.” The woman twirls a lock of her own around her finger. “Yours is nice. Thick, a good length, a pretty color—”

“It’s natural.” Mei says this like she hadn’t dyed it teal a few years back in some attempt at a belated rebellious streak that would never outdo her actual biggest act of rebellion. (Also to relive her childhood crush on Sailor Neptune.)

“I can tell.” Hands folded in her lap, the woman sits back. Maybe it’s a little rude that Mei hasn’t so much as glanced away from her phone to acknowledge her with a look this entire time, but hey, she’s got places to be. “Do you trim it yourself?”

At this rate, Mei won’t be able to keep playing her game. She dims her screen and lowers her phone. “I have been recently,” she says, because there’s only so much money she can spare for nonessential goods and services. “You can tell?”

“It’s just a little more uneven than I would make it.” The woman makes a so-so gesture with her hand. “It looks good overall, though. More than I would expect from an amateur.”

Mei only hums. There’s only so much she’s willing to tell a stranger, and her past aspirations do not fall into that category. The woman doesn’t say anything further, so Mei is about to get her phone back out when she realizes that the train has paused—at her stop, no less—and that they’re moving forward once more, doors sliding shut. A frantic glance out the window shows Mei’s station blurring away.

“Oh, shit,” she mutters, gripping her earbuds tight enough that the crack beneath her hand.

“Oh, did you miss your stop? I’m sorry!” The woman across from her bows her head, bringing dark hair into her eyes. “The next stop is mine, so I’ll walk you back.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Really, I insist,” says the woman. “It was my fault.”

Mei can’t bring herself to argue with the sweet, imploring look on the woman’s face, so she stands there in irritated silence for the thirty more minutes it takes to reach the next stop. She stays a firm block ahead of the woman once they’re out.

Once they’ve backtracked to the general area of Mei’s stop, the woman stops Mei before she can dodge her and presses something solid and rectangular into Mei’s palm.

“Here,” she says with an expression best described as _stern_ , “I’ll give you a business card and the promise of a free cut for your troubles. I’m between jobs right now—” she glances away, the only visible display of her discomfort “—but I work out of my house most days of the week. Just call me sometime if you want a professional cut. We can work something out.”

“That’s not—” starts Mei, but before she can argue, the woman is already running off in the opposite direction, impressively athletic.

Mei purses her lips and glances at the business card in her hand. It looks professional enough, with a sleek design featuring white text against a background as black and shiny as the woman’s hair.

Mei’s thumb runs over the name: _Kageyama Miwa_. The surname and its spelling ring some distant bells in her mind, but she dismisses the feeling as déjà vu—it’s a common enough surname, after all.

In the meantime, it’s getting dark, so she stuffs the card in her pocket and rushes in the direction of her apartment building.

*

Even with the relatively short distance from her stop, Mei doesn’t get home for another while, and she’s not surprised that Tooru is still in her apartment, lying on his stomach on the couch and watching some bad drama on TV. It isn’t _that_ late, but the lights are all down. Mei grimaces as she sets down her bag and kicks off her shoes in the entryway.

“Where’s Takeru?” is the first thing she asks.

Tooru doesn’t even look up. “Asleep already. Kids,” he says with the air of one who has had a deeply fucked sleep schedule since age eleven. “I can’t believe you still make me babysit.”

“It’s not like I have the money for a real one.”

That makes him pause the show, affronted. “Hey, what are you saying? That I don’t deserve to be paid for my services? I’ve had to babysit my nephew since I was his age _—_ I think I’m better than any old babysitter you could hire off the street.”

“I think it was Hajime doing most of the real babysitting and you just making disgusting faces at Takeru,” says Mei, and Tooru doesn’t protest, only waving a hand. “Besides, you make enough already.”

“Being a very handsome and cool volleyball player doesn’t pay as much as you think it does,” argues Tooru, sitting halfway up against the pillows.

“Your boyfriend is a doctor. You’ll be fine.”

Tooru sticks his tongue out at her, a long-established sign that either Oikawa sibling knows they’ve lost the argument but wants to have the last word anyway. Mei rolls her eyes and steps around the couch to look at the TV. He isn’t even watching a Japanese drama, she realizes with dismay. There are at least subtitles, so she doesn’t have to question how much he’s comprehending with his very basic knowledge of Korean. (Though it isn’t like Mei can say she’s gone out of her way to learn their grandmother’s native tongue either.)

She then glances at the clock. “You’ll be leeching off of me once more, I assume,” she says, grim.

In lieu of a verbal answer, Tooru gives her a smug look from beneath his glasses and sprawls his legs over the arm of her couch. He lives too far away now to make the trip without it stretching into the wee hours of the morning, so Mei just sighs, ruffles his stupid hair, and—figuring it’s too late for one last snack—heads off to bed herself.

“If your shitty drama wakes up my son,” says Mei over her shoulder as she goes, “I _will_ kill you.”

“You are robbing me of the chance to reconnect with our Korean heritage,” Tooru calls after her, but the volume clicks down.

She checks in on Takeru on her way to her room, just cracking the door open to see if he’s really asleep or if he’s playing video games under the covers. “Takeru?” she murmurs as she peeks in.

Nothing, and no light is to be seen. For all intents and purposes, he appears to be well into dreamland—or he’s faking it well enough that Mei can’t even be mad.

Just in case, Mei says, “Goodnight,” shuts the door again, and pads off to bed with Kageyama Miwa’s business card still weighing a hole in her pocket.

*

The next morning, Mei forces Tooru to stay for breakfast, because otherwise he won’t eat until well after noon. He does so without complaint, even letting her use some of what he’d made for Takeru last night (she’s just shocked that he hadn’t ordered takeout like usual) to spare some time. They all gather together with a rare sense of calm. For all of his pre-teen mannerisms, Takeru keeps prodding his uncle for volleyball stories he’s heard hundreds of times before.

And, of course, Mei takes this as an opportunity to yawn and drift off all she wants. With the chaos of yesterday evening, she hadn’t gotten as much sleep as she would have liked, and the physical presence of the business card she hasn’t gotten a chance to throw away yet worsens matters.

“Mom,” prompts Takeru the third time she spaces out, and Mei startles to attention. When she glances at him across the table, his face is scrunched with concern, but being a preadolescent boy of the Oikawa family, he only says, “Your miso soup is getting cold.”

“So it is.” Mei stirs it around. “I’m just worried about eating your uncle’s leftovers.”

“I can cook fine,” says Tooru defensively, jabbing his chopsticks at her, though it’s somewhat ruined by how his mouth is filled with rice.

Takeru wrinkles his nose. “ _Gross_ , Tooru,” he says with all of the intrinsic hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness of a twelve-year-old.

“Gross, Tooru,” Mei agrees.

Tooru proceeds to chew with his mouth open while looking right at her, though whatever he sees in her face makes him pause and reconsider.

He lets it slide for breakfast, but afterward, once Takeru is off getting ready for school and Tooru is “helping” Mei with the dishes (leaning against the counter and taking whatever food is still left), he raises his eyebrows with a distinctly mischievous look. Mei glares back without missing a beat.

“If you want to interrogate me, then help.”

“Ah, but I don’t need to! I am your brother, and also very smart.” Unfortunately, he is, so Mei flicks soap off her fingers at him. He is also a spry athlete, even though Mei can tell he’s wearing his knee brace, so he dodges without blinking. “Something happened yesterday, didn’t it? Maybe you met somebody?” When Mei doesn’t protest, not bothering with this conversation, he cackles. “It’s about time, honestly! You haven’t seriously dated anyone since—”

“Hey, peanut gallery.” Mei’s tone is harsher than intended, but it doesn’t put a dent in Tooru’s smile, nor does she regret it. “You put a moratorium on cheap shots about your love life when you were fifteen.”

“Well, yes, but I’m your darling baby brother. You don’t get to make fun of me.”

“I’ve spent my entire life making fun of you, jackass,” says Mei, wiping her hands off on the dishtowel. It is a show of extreme self-restraint that she doesn’t smack him with it. “Mom’s favorite story is how the first time I saw you when you came home from the hospital, I said, ‘He’s kinda ugly.’”

“And look at me now!” says Tooru, framing his face with his hands. He’s still wearing glasses and hasn’t gotten to cover up his acne scars yet, but he’s grinning genuinely enough to produce dimples nonetheless. “Back to my point—”

“I didn’t meet anyone of romantic interest, Tooru.” Which is all correct, so he can’t argue with her about it.

Or he wouldn’t, were he anyone except Tooru. “Ah, but you did meet _someone_!”

“I guess. Some weird girl stopped me on the train to comment on my hair.” Mei toys with the edges—are they really all that uneven? She thought she’d done a fine enough job given she hadn’t tried to cut hair (not hers) since she was sixteen and still thought she had a steady enough future, but she supposes a real hairstylist has a keener eye for these things. “That was why I was so late.”

“You got caught up talking to her?”

“No. God. She distracted me, and I missed my stop.”

Tooru’s grin sharpens. “You know, Mei, in the drama I was watching last night—”

“Don’t you fucking dare try to compare my life to a soap opera.” Mei glances at the silverware drawer out of the corners of her eyes. She can and will get to the knife in under ten seconds. Tooru might be a professional volleyball player with reflexes to show for it, but she’s forever blessed with the instincts of a lifelong troublemaker’s older sister.

“Hey, hey, I didn’t say that!” Tooru raises his hands in defense, snickers ruining his mock-frightened expression. “Let me ask one more question, all right? Was she at least pretty?”

“I have to go to work and you are officially unwelcome in my home,” says Mei instead of answering, which is, in and of itself, an answer. “Bye, Tooru. I’m going to change the locks when I get back.”

“I learned how to pick locks back in my second year of high school. You can’t escape me, Mei. Womb to tomb.”

Mei turns the sink off with perhaps more strength than necessary and hurries off to say goodbye to her son. (And tell him he should get a good last glimpse of his uncle.)

*

Mei doesn’t get around to throwing the business card out for almost two weeks. She really should—it’s not like it would take an exorbitant amount of time, given it’s one measly little card, and she’s not going to get a haircut from Kageyama. As tempting as the offer seems, she has no use for it.

She keeps telling herself this, but she finds herself tucking it into her pockets almost on instinct. It’s a hard thing to lose. Like the second button of her high school boyfriend’s graduation uniform, or dresses she hasn’t fit into since she was fifteen, or her mother’s collections of both her and Tooru’s baby teeth, but with none of the real sentimentality. It just follows Mei about like a war wound.

In frustration, she takes it out and leaves it on the kitchen counter one day, intending to toss it after dinner. Before Takeru wanders in, she hasn’t quite gotten to that point, and of course he takes an interest in the strange business card left on the counter.

“Mom, what’s this?”

When Mei turns, he’s waving it between his fingers. “Oh, that’s just something I got from a hairstylist I ran into the other day. I was going to throw it away tonight.”

“Oh,” says Takeru with a nod. “Should I throw it away, then?”

“Eh, no. I’ll get around to it.” Mei winces at how unbelievable it sounds even as she says it, but although she doesn’t plan on getting a haircut—or, as the card notes she also does, a makeover—from Ms. Kageyama Miwa, something is keeping her from throwing it away like that. “Here, help me with this, won’t you?”

Takeru sets the card down and scurries over. He’s a little overzealous in his cooking methods, but together, they manage to put together a more decent dinner than Mei could have probably made all by herself.

If anything, it tastes like home.

*

“Hey! You!”

Mei spins on her heel to find a too-familiar young woman rushing toward her. They’re in a coffee shop, Mei waiting on her order, so Ms. Kageyama’s entrance is nothing less than conspicuous—Mei can already hear the conversation spiraling out of control, so she pockets her phone. Several middle-aged people in the café avert their once-judgmental gazes.

“Hello,” says Mei, clutching her bag closer to her side. “Come to comment on my hair? I haven’t cut it in at least a week.” Two, in fact, but Mei isn’t going to say that much.

“I told you I was sorry about that.” Kageyama folds her arms and scoffs, blowing a stray hair out of her eyes. She’s frowning, but it seems more reflexive than out of any sort of genuine irritation. Up close like this, Mei can see how short she is, although still bearing an athletic, fit build. “No, I just saw you again and I realized I never got your name the other day.”

“Oh. It’s Oikawa Mei.”

Kageyama straightens with a flicker of recognition in her eyes, though she doesn’t ask, perhaps a return favor for Mei not asking after her last name. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Mei.”

“You’re already calling me by my first name?”

“Why not? You can call me Miwa.”

Mei almost wants to resist, but something about Miwa’s intent gaze makes her reconsider. Dammit, she’s already doing it in her mind. “Sure, Miwa. …Now that we have that figured out, I have to pick my son up from volleyball practice after this, so—”

“Your son?” Miwa’s eyebrows pinch together in thought.

“Yes. He’s twelve.”

Miwa looks Mei up and down, clearly recognizing how similar in age they are, and taps her chin. The question she asks is not the one most people ask upon hearing Takeru’s age and doing the math: “What’s his name?”

“Takeru,” says Mei on instinct.

“Takeru. That’s a good name.” Miwa gives a severe nod as if they’re talking about something far more serious, then says, more heavy-handed, “Your husband can’t look after him?”

Mei barks out a laugh. “Oh, yes, my nonexistent husband.”

“Oh!” Miwa freezes, her mouth forming an almost comical _O_. “I apologize for the assumption,” she says, bowing her head like she had on the train, though it looks somewhat more natural when she’s standing up.

Now people are really paying attention. Mei picks at her collar and says, “It happens all the time. Now—”

“Right, right, your coffee and your son.” Miwa loiters, however, and as soon as Mei pulls out her phone again, she blurts, “Listen—”

Mei grimaces and looks up. So much for that.

“I was wondering,” says Miwa, eyes fixed on Mei’s in a way that isn’t quite unsettling but isn’t wholly comfortable either, “if you wanted to get lunch with me sometime too.”

“Pardon?” Mei blinks, already feeling all of the scandalized seniors redirecting their gazes again. She shuffles her feet. “You mean, as a date?”

“If you want. As friends is fine, though, if you’re not into women or me or something.”

“I—I am very bisexual,” manages Mei.

“Oh, good, I thought so. Me too, by the way.”

Mei ignores that. She’s not used to being propositioned so loudly in public, let alone by other women, and so she spends several seconds only gaping, continuing to blink with a fish-like expression. The desire to pinch herself awake strikes her. She can’t seem to bring herself to so much as move her hand.

“We’re strangers,” she points out. “Why would you ask me out?”

“We know each other’s names now,” says Miwa. “And I offered to cut your hair. And I know your son’s name. I think that technically makes us acquaintances, doesn’t it? I don’t know, is there some sort of threshold for quantifying that?”

“I—” It isn’t often that Mei trips over her tongue like this, with the put-together image she tries to project, but her mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. “Acquaintances, fine. But why—?”

“You seem interesting.” Miwa shrugs. “I can’t explain it. Sometimes you just feel drawn to people, right? Unless you don’t feel that way toward me, in which case we don’t have to do anything. Remember that haircut, though,” she adds, snapping her fingers together and apart again in the motion of a pair of scissors.

Mei opens her mouth. She intends to refuse outright—this isn’t something she’s used to happening outside of the dramas she, too, watches late at night when she can’t sleep. But—

She has to admit, Miwa interests her too, all the more for such a bold proclamation. Even if it’s a total flop, thinks Mei with her lip between her teeth, what harm can one date do? She at least knows Miwa is a real human person, and that’s more than she can say for all of her recent dating app conversations.

“I can’t go today,” says Mei. “Or any other time this week, because of work and my son, but—” She pinches the bridge of her nose, running through the internal calendar in her brain; she does feel somewhat guilty for foisting Takeru off on Tooru, though her guilt is almost all on Takeru’s behalf. “This weekend, Takeru is staying with his uncles and I don’t have work, so I’ll be free from Saturday afternoon until Sunday evening.”

“Oh, Saturday afternoon should work for me.” Mei is about to cut in adding that they don’t have any way of contacting each other to make plans, but before she can, Miwa says, “How about we just meet around here and find a food stall somewhere? I’ve had a real hankering for street food lately, and my brother won’t get anything but dumplings with me.”

“That—” Mei’s stomach growls before she can finish.

Miwa raises an eyebrow. “It seems like you need some now.”

“Ugh, maybe.” Mei shakes herself and coughs. She’ll pick up something greasy for her and Takeru on her way, she supposes. “That sounds good. We can meet here at—” she considers the time frame “—one in the afternoon on Saturday.”

“It’s a date.” Miwa gives Mei a thumbs-up, but Mei’s order is called before she can say anything else.

The barista looks somewhat startled by the exchange going on in the corner of the coffee shop, but they hand Mei her coffee with a smile. She takes a long sip.

By the time she steps outside, Miwa has disappeared into the crowd, leaving her to question if the conversation had even happened.

*

At twelve-fifty on Saturday, after dropping off Takeru for the weekend and promising about half a dozen times that he could call or get Tooru or Hajime to call any time, Mei shows up outside the same café. She’s wearing a watch for about the first time in months, and a perhaps too formal set of blazers and trousers to go with it.

As she waits, she paces on the sidewalk, trying not to blend in too much with the crowd. Her palms are sweating more than she’d expected.

She can’t help but wonder why she thought she could do this. She hasn’t been on a date in forever, what with Takeru. Tooru had been right when he’d mentioned her lack of serious relationships since Takeru’s father, as she’s limited anything to single dates for the past twelve years. While she’s far from old, she doesn’t know what people do on dates nowadays. She’s _boring_.

And speaking of Takeru—how will she mention this to him? He’s a self-sufficient enough twelve-year-old that she doesn’t need to worry as much about her free time now. And though her being bi has never come up, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise (far too many times he’s looked at the _Revolutionary Girl Utena_ and _Sailor Moon_ posters and figurines around their home) or be a big deal given the other LGBT people they know. But even so, she’s never introduced him to any of her dates. Rightfully, since nothing has gone past a single date; there’s no saying that this will either, but if it does—

Ugh. Mei should call and cancel. Except she doesn’t have Miwa’s number, because she hadn’t had time to ask when they’d made their plans, so she should just leave a note on the storefront, or something. No, fuck, that would get her arrested for vandalism.

She’s halfway to making the decision to outright flee when Miwa’s unmistakable voice sounds beside her: “You’re early.”

Mei pauses in the middle of her nervous breakdown to glance at the time. Twelve-fifty-eight. “So are you.”

“Well, we didn’t say one on the dot, did we?” Miwa—who is dressed in a simple but nice-looking jacket and skirt, and whose makeup is subtly pretty—glances over Mei. “Are you doing all right? Still feeling okay about this?”

Mei’s heart hasn’t stopped beating at an irregularly fast pace, but she figures that’s something she’ll have to put up with for the whole of the date. “Yes,” she adds, stiff, then adds at the deepening of Miwa’s frown, “It’s just—I haven’t been on a date in a really long time, so I’m not sure what to… do.” It sounds pathetic when she puts it like that. She deflates somewhat, tugging at her sleeve.

“It’s all right. Just, ah, relax and be yourself?”

“Easy for you to say,” mumbles Mei.

“Was that rude? I apologize.” Miwa ducks her head and straightens back up in a blink, all while Mei is waving her off. “I’d like to know more about you, is all,” adds Miwa. “You don’t have to be nervous. It doesn’t have to be anything super serious, but if it turns into that, that’s all right too, isn’t it?”

With a sigh, Mei rolls her sleeves up to the elbow. “I probably shouldn’t have worn this.”

“It looks nice on you, though.” Before Mei can answer that, Miwa says, “Have you eaten lunch yet?”

Mei shakes her head.

“Good, me neither. We can grab something from one of the stalls around here—” Miwa gestures around the streets “—and go over to one of the parks, maybe?”

That plan is agreeable enough to Mei, who apologizes again for her stiffness. After browsing the options and expressing their respective love for yakisoba, they get some cups from a street vendor. It’s a little too hot for Mei, but Miwa dives right in, seeming unconcerned about the amount of steam trailing up into the air.

“We’re going to be walking for a while, so we might as well talk,” pipes up Miwa. At least she isn’t talking with her mouth full, though she does almost trip over the sidewalk because she’s looking at Mei. Mei catches her by the elbow and drops her hand at once. “Hmm… what’s a safe first-date topic?”

Mei takes a moment to consider that. “Um—let me think.”

“Take your time.”

“If something comes up that I don’t want to talk about,” decides Mei, too many options running through her mind, “then I’ll let you know. Otherwise—”

“Fair game?” Miwa takes a big bite of yakisoba and stops walking for a moment so she can swallow. Once she does, she says, “Okay. What’s your son like? Takeru?”

Mei brightens. It’s a good topic—besides being something she’s more than comfortable with, it shows Miwa’s interest in all aspects of her life and establishes that the son won’t be an issue. Still, she takes a moment to consider her answer, not least because they’re crossing the street.

“He’s a little spitfire—I blame that on my brother’s influence, but probably, it’s some combination of us both,” she says with a laugh. “He can be pretty blunt, but he’s a good kid. He plays volleyball— _that_ one he definitely picked up from my brother—and he’s already really passionate about it. Good, too. At least he seems so to me.”

“He sounds like my little brother,” says Miwa, wistful. “He’s never had much tact, but he’s played volleyball basically his whole life. Me, I quit back in high school, but he grabbed a volleyball as a baby and hasn’t let go since. Almost literally. This one time when he was an infant, he wouldn’t let go of _my_ volleyball.” Her cheeks puff out with exaggerated—or genuine, Mei has no way of knowing for certain—aggravation.

Though Mei chuckles, it’s somewhat subdued, a perhaps foregone conclusion solidifying in her mind. “Your brother—” She adjusts her chopsticks. “His name wouldn’t happen to be Tobio, would it?”

“Ah, it would. How—?” Realization crosses Miwa’s face, and she says, slow, “Your last name is Oikawa.”

“It is.”

“Your brother is Oikawa Tooru.”

“He is.”

“Huh,” says Miwa. Instead of looking horrified, though, a slow grin spreads across her face, beautiful in spite of (or maybe because of) its abruptness. “Huh! Well, what are the chances?”

“Pretty slim, I would say,” says Mei, who is mostly distracted by the thought that Tooru can never, _ever_ know about this. But, well, she’s already having a fun enough time even with this revelation, so maybe—

(Maybe, she tells herself, this isn’t a first-date thought to have.)

Miwa is still grinning, and she shakes her head as she continues funneling noodles into her mouth. For such a slight girl, she sure seems to be a big eater. “We’ve got some common ground then, I guess. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”

“I didn’t go to many of Tooru’s games in middle school—preoccupied with Takeru.”

“Oh, I see. Well, anyway, enough about stupid boys,” says Miwa, waving her cup around with an inspirational sort of nonchalance. “I want to know more about _you_ , Oikawa Mei.”

“Really, you aren’t going to comment on how we might as well be the Romeo and Juliet among pseudo-celebrities’ relatives?”

“Hey, your brother might be a pseudo-celebrity, but mine went to the damn Olympics.” Miwa presses a proud hand to her chest. “And I have over a million followers on my professional Instagram account, so it’s not just him.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” says Mei, shedding an internal tear for her lost Shakespearean reference; she should stop expecting people to understand English literature jokes. “What do you want to know?”

“Hm? Oh—how about—where do you work?”

“Right now, just a couple of part-time retail jobs. Not the best, but at least they’re midday and not graveyard shifts.” Mei presses her tongue against her front teeth in consideration. She adjusts her fogged-up glasses before adding, “I’ve been considering going back to school, though—university, I mean. I never really got to go because of—” She cups her hands over her belly to evoke the image of a baby bump.

Miwa’s head quirks. “I see,” she says, frowning. “That’s too bad. What do you want to go to school for?”

“I’m still working on that one,” says Mei dryly. “I don’t know. My old high school goals don’t seem feasible anymore, so—”

“What were those?”

“Well, actually—” Mei grimaces. “I wanted to be a hairstylist,” she says in a grave tone that makes it sound like more of a confession than it is.

“What? Seriously?” Miwa leans forward, eyeing Mei’s self-done haircut with a look riding the line between judgmental and admiring. “And you never mentioned that?”

“When would I have?” asks Mei with a shrug. “I haven’t been seriously interested for—well, eleven years. I suppose I’ve considered some other things since then.”

“Hm, really? Let me guess,” says Miwa, twisting her noodles around her chopsticks, and Mei is so bemused she nods. “Mathematician Graphic designer? Science teacher? Sales clerk? Lawyer?”

“Those are all… very different careers.”

“I wanted to cover all of my bases,” says Miwa without a hint of irony.

Mei coughs into her fist rather than laughing. “My mom’s a lawyer, but you were the closest with the teacher,” she says, sidestepping a couple taking up half of the walkway and bumping into Miwa in the process. She jumps back and shoots Miwa, who seems none the wiser, an apologetic look. “Not science, though—I’ve never been good at that. Japanese literature, or maybe English? I just like reading.”

“That’s cool,” says Miwa, and her neutral tone would make Mei roll her eyes if her expression weren’t genuinely intrigued. “I don’t know you very well yet, but I think you’d be good at that. You have a lot of passion, I can tell, and you seem like a good listener.”

“Thank you.” Mei swallows a too-large, too-hot mouthful of yakisoba and does her best not to cough again. She should have pocketed her inhaler. “Your turn. Why did you quit volleyball?”

“Well—” Miwa’s lips press together. Mei is about to redact her question, but then she says, “On my high school team, there was something of an unofficial rule that the members had to cut their hair short. I didn’t want to, so I quit. And then I had to start trimming my hair and my brother’s hair, and I realized I really liked it. That’s it.”

Mei eyes Miwa’s current style. “You don’t seem to have any problems with short hair now.”

Miwa sniffs. “I was going through a lot in high school, okay?”

“Weren’t we all,” mutters Mei, thinking of both herself and Tooru.

Though she pauses mid-step, Miwa recovers fast enough. “Yeah. But we’re here now.”

“So we are.” Mei assumes Miwa means more along the existential lines, but she can’t help a small smile as she raises her arm to point across the street. “Also, there’s the park. We’re a little late for the cherry blossoms, but it’s pretty anyway.”

“Hm?” Miwa jumps, chopsticks halfway to her mouth, and then drops them back into her cup with a start. “Oh, hey. I don’t think we’re going to be able to find anywhere to sit—” she squints at the people visible even from here “—but we can at least watch the pond.”

Together, they wander through the park in search of a good place to wait, silent but walking a little closer together than is necessary under the guise of avoiding cluttering the pathways. It’s not late enough in the year that the cherry blossoms are gone; they’re not ripe by any means, but they’re still full. Mei shakes a petal out of her hair as they walk. Miwa’s hand, halfway up to pluck it off for her, falls back to her side without a fuss.

They watch the lotus blossoms drift across the pond with smatterings of conversation about different things around them. The area is good to people-watch, if nothing else. More than once, Mei catches Miwa watching the same people as she is, and they both grin when their eyes meet.

As the time whittles away, though, Mei remembers all of the chores she has to take care of at home, even with Takeru away for the weekend. For all that Miwa’s presence has put her at ease, she really should head back home, and she tells Miwa so with a bowed apology, feeling unnatural, that Miwa assures her is unnecessary. They toss their empty yakisoba cups on their way out of the park and hover for a moment by the exit. Not the best place to say goodbye, as people are still streaming out around them, but they both seem unwilling to go farther.

“Well,” says Miwa.

“Well,” says Mei. She clears her throat and continues, almost surprised with how earnest it is and how light she feels, a stark contrast to her earlier anxiety, “This was nice. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to see you again.”

Miwa smiles. “I’d like that too,” she says, and Mei sags with relief. “You have my phone number, so—”

“I do?”

“Uh, yeah, unless you threw it away?” Miwa makes a vague gesture, which Mei stares blankly at for a moment before it clicks.

“Oh! Your business card.” Mei rubs her forehead. “I thought about throwing it away, but I never did.”

Miwa snorts—through the thick fog that her mind has become swathed in, Mei can just acknowledge that it’s a very nice snort. “Well, I don’t have a professional number, so you can just text me there any time. Feel more than free to.” She pauses for Mei to nod, then looks down, far more demure than her shows of spontaneity since they met. “It was really nice hanging out with you, Mei. I hope I’ll see you around.”

She turns to go, leaving Mei with only the afterimage of her smile.

*

Hi.

Hey! (*^‿^*)/

I assume this is Mei?

👍

You’re not a very expressive texter are you?

Force of habit. I have to distinguish myself from my brother and all of his disgusting kaomoji somehow.

You really would make a good teacher.

Also, hey, who are you calling disgusting?!

Hehe, thank you.

Just Tooru’s. Yours are fine.

More expressive than you speak and look in real life, though…?

(^_<)

Anyway how are you? Takeru should be back home now, right?

Yeah! He had a really good time. He’s curious about what I did and I don’t think he believes me when I say “Nothing in particular, just chores.”

Ah, twelve.

Twelve…

Bad memories from your brother?

And how. Yours?

Mei?

God. Sorry, just thinking.

Sorry for stirring up any traumatic memories. m(_ _)m

You’re not planning on telling him, then? Takeru, I mean.

Sorry if that’s a bad question. I’ve never dated anyone with a kid before, so I’m not really sure about the whole protocol, I guess?

Yeah, I think I want to wait it out.

…We’re dating?

I’d like to be. I know we haven’t known each other very long and it’s only been one date, but… still.

Yeah! I would too!

(♡˙︶˙♡)

Also, I saw you like that two-year-old post on Instagram.

…

It’s fine, haha! That’s why they’re still up.

Do you want my personal account? Mostly I just post selfies and pictures of my cat, but it’s locked for professional reasons anyway.

Your cat?

My baby Riku! I almost named him Tobio, but Tobio refused.

Look, they have the same expression.

_[Attached image: A photograph of, without a doubt, volleyball star Kageyama Tobio next to a small fuzzy black cat, presumably Riku. Both are scowling with their eyes on the camera.]_

Oh my God.

Tell Riku I love him.

And yeah, sure!

(If Mei spends the rest of the night scrolling through but keeps herself from liking any old posts, that’s her business.)

*

On the fourth date, each spaced out across about every other week as babysitters and Mei’s relatives will permit (mainly Mei’s mother, who is the first person she tells about Miwa), Mei meets Miwa’s younger brother. It’s accidental, judging from the startled look on his face when she rings the doorbell and he answers.

“Um,” he says. “Hello?”

“Hi,” says Mei. Already able to spot the familiar features—their dark hair, their flat expressions, their lean builds that show their history in volleyball—she adds, “I’m here for Miwa.”

“Oh. She’s—” Miwa’s brother glances over his shoulder “—still putting her makeup on, I think. I was just here to drop something off for her.” A cat, one that Mei recognizes from the pictures on Miwa’s Instagram and saved to her own photo albums, emerges from behind him to brush up against his leg, a distinctly slighted look on his face.

“And to play with her cat?”

Miwa’s brother doesn’t answer, only looking away, but Mei has known Tooru long enough to know a look of stubborn concession when she sees it. She snorts—she can’t blame him.

“You can come inside,” says the younger Kageyama, awkwardly gesturing Mei in. “My sister shouldn’t take much longer.”

Mei nods and steps in, kicking her shoes off even though she’ll only be here for a few minutes at best. She bends to greet Riku the cat, who meets her offered hand halfway and bumps his ear against her fingers.

As she scratches along his neck, she peers up at Miwa’s brother. The resemblance between him and his older sister is uncanny, while he’s a bit more awkward and tight-lipped than she is, and of course Mei recognizes him from television as well. Beyond that, though, he’s taller than when she’d last seen him in person, and his hair is shorter, but—

“You were on Kitagawa Daiichi’s volleyball team with my little brother,” she says, not a question.

Tobio—which she’d already thought of him as under Tooru’s influence, though she can’t say it doesn’t make for easily distinguishing the Kageyama siblings now—jolts. “Your—? Who—?”

“Oikawa Tooru,” says Mei with a grin that shows off the dimples they share. A shudder runs through Tobio, and she laughs. “Yeah, he’s kind of a dick. But he’s—don’t tell him I said this—my favorite brother, so watch what you say,” she adds when Tobio’s mouth opens.

“Right,” says Tobio. “He’s… a skilled volleyball player?”

“That, we can agree on.” Mei nods sagely and gives Riku one last pat on the top of his head before she stands up. He purrs and knocks his head against her calf. “Hey, does your sister have any allergies? She won’t tell me, and I wanted to bring flowers or something to eat but I didn’t want to, um, bring anything that would give her hives.”

“Just pollen, I think.”

“Okay, thanks.” Mei gets the impression that Tobio is far less talkative than his sister, so she decides not to push him (for her own benefit as well, given the anxiety bundling in her stomach at the unexpected encounter). Riku wanders off to twine his tail around Tobio’s legs.

“Did I hear Mei?” comes a voice from the side, and Mei and Tobio both turn to see Miwa in the hallway. She brightens upon meeting Mei’s eyes, and Mei’s shoulders relax. “I did! You look lovely,” she says as she comes in for a greeting kiss on the cheek, which makes Mei blush and Tobio take a firm interest in the wall furthest away from them.

“As do you,” says Mei with a grin.

Miwa rolls her eyes in Tobio’s direction. “I imagine you’ve been having a riveting conversation with my brother.”

“He isn’t so bad.”

Giving Mei a flat look, Miwa grabs her coat and a pair of heeled boots. “Anyway, I’m ready to go. Goodnight, Tobio,” she calls over her shoulder. “If you plan on staying the night, could you feed Riku for me?”

“I don’t, but I will.”

“Goodnight,” adds Mei, because Miwa is already hauling her halfway out of the door. “It was nice meeting you.”

Tobio nods, albeit with an expression that makes him look like he just sucked on a lemon. After catching her breath, Mei takes Miwa’s arm outside, and they snicker about what idiots their little brothers are all the way to the restaurant, where they shift their attention to one another.

*

It’s almost troubling how fast Mei settles into a routine with Miwa.

They’re taking it slow, so they both say, but Mei thinks they both know how attached they’ve already grown to each other. It’s nothing like love yet, but the emphasis is on _yet_. It could be, and the thought is scary and sudden (but appealing, in a sense) enough that Mei reserves to save it for another day when it does become such a thing.

Mei, for one, likes Miwa more than she thinks she ever has anyone before. Takeru’s father had been a fling when she was seventeen, having left for college weeks before she gave birth a couple of weeks after turning eighteen by mutual agreement, and she hasn’t seen anyone for more than a couple of dates since. (All of which she tells to Miwa on the fifth date, considering that an acceptable threshold to discuss exes. She also brings up her crush on Sailor Neptune that she hadn’t known had been a crush by virtue of being seven.) Maybe it’s just because Mei is old enough now to have stopped believing in love and start believing all over again, but Miwa is different.

They’re both working adults and Mei has a child under sixteen, so they can’t spend every waking moment together, they know. But Mei also thinks they would get sick of each other if they did, so they enjoy what time they do have together with everything they have. They figure out how to work together, to push and pull and back away when needed. Things won’t be so happy-go-lucky as they learn more of each other’s flaws and nasty habits, because regardless of how they’d met, life isn’t a soap opera, but Mei is happy to have Miwa in her life.

Others pick up on it. Takeru keeps asking why she looks so happy. Mei’s mother, of course, asks about Miwa and how things are going every time she calls. Tooru is… Tooru about it, but he gives the equivalent of his blessing:

“So,” he says one night as he offers his alleged help with the dishes while Hajime and Takeru are in the living room (the former against his will, the latter voluntarily), and Mei is somehow startled and not at all at once when he slides Miwa’s business card out of his sleeve. “About this girl you’ve been seeing—”

“She’s older than you,” Mei says first. Then, after a pause: “Ugh, have you been talking to Mom?”

Tooru’s smug expression says exactly that. Next time, Mei thinks, she’ll have to be firmer with her mother, who is well-intentioned but overexcitable.

“Where did you find that, by the way,” adds Mei with a nod toward the business card, not even turning it into a question.

“Your bathroom counter. Real subtle place.” Mei elbows him. “Now about this Kageyama—she wouldn’t happen to be related to Kageyama _Tobio_ , would she?”

Mei had been planning to have this conversation in a more controlled setting, with no weapons—improvised or otherwise—in easy reach, but it seems Mei doesn’t always get what she wants. “It’s a common name.”

“Mmm.”

“The spelling is pretty average, too.”

“Mei.”

“She’s his older sister,” says Mei, looking at the ceiling. She can hear Tooru snap his head around at the affirmation, emitting suppressed rage, so all she says is, “Look, I like her regardless of her family and she likes me regardless of mine. If you have something to say, say it to Tobio.”

For a long moment, Tooru only stares at her with narrowed eyes. Then he asks, “Is she going to meet Takeru?”

Mei tugs at her earring. “I was thinking about introducing them in a few more weeks,” she says, and any hint of slyness in Tooru’s expression gives way to solemn surprise. “We’ve been together for a few months by now. I don’t want to rush it, but I don’t want to put it off too long either.”

Tooru adjusts his glasses. “Well, if it’s that serious—”

“I think so,” says Mei, almost a whisper.

“—then I’m glad for you,” he says, bumping his shoulder against hers—a little too hard, but Mei grins and bears it. “Even if you are courting a _Kageyama_. Ick, just don’t take her name when you get married, okay? I couldn’t stand it if my only sister traded her name for Kageyama Tobio’s.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” snaps Mei, shoving him in the side. “Fuck off, Tooru. But—thanks,” she manages before things can devolve too much.

He grins, and then flicks water onto her shirt.

“Hey! You bastard, this is a brand new shirt! Hajime, come rein in your boyfriend!”

*

“Oh, hey, I just realized I never asked,” says Mei as she stands in her doorway, still holding the bouquet Miwa had brought as a gift. “Are you actually any good with kids?”

“Uh, I like to think so? Are you asking me this minutes before I meet your son?”

“Yes,” says Mei, and then she calls over her shoulder, “Takeru! Come say hi!” She turns back toward Miwa, who is now looking somewhat green. “Can’t run now. Come in, why don’t you.”

Miwa fiddles with her collar as she steps inside, and Mei shuts the door behind her. “You told him about our plans, right?”

By all means, Mei figures that she should be more nervous, given her general disposition, but she’s more than willing to be the calm one in this instance. She takes the opportunity to replace Miwa’s last set of flowers in a vase in the kitchen. “Obviously,” she says as she does. “He’s old enough that he can say yes or no to things, and I wasn’t going to just spring something like this on him.”

Mei’s voice, hushed to begin with, cuts off when Takeru starts down the hall, not running but not walking at a regular pace either. He comes to stand by Mei, looking across the room at Miwa.

“Hi! Takeru, right?” Miwa doesn’t bend down to greet Takeru (who is already shaping up to take after his uncle in build but still an inch or two shorter than Miwa), which is already a point in her favor. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from your mother.”

“This is Ms. Kageyama,” introduces Mei.

“Hello, Ms. Kageyama,” says Takeru, never one to be shy but not all that forthcoming either. At least he isn’t just calling her _Kageyama_. He peers curiously at her. “You’re Mom’s girlfriend.”

Miwa looks taken aback, glancing between Takeru and Mei, who nods in encouragement, but she recovers soon enough. “I am.”

Takeru considers her a moment longer, then nods and decides, “Okay,” which only makes Miwa’s visible confusion increase twofold. “Do you like volleyball?”

“I used to play, actually. I’ve heard you do too,” chances Miwa.

Just like that, Takeru lights up. “I do! What position did you play? I’m a wing spiker,” he boasts without waiting for an answer, “and I’m gonna be the ace someday. Is volleyball for girls any different than it is for boys? How long did you play for? Do you—”

“Why don’t you go wash your hands and get ready for dinner, Takeru?” cuts in Mei, because they’ll be talking back and forth for hours at this rate. “You can help me cook for our guest. We can talk more to Ms. Kageyama over dinner.”

Though somewhat glum, Takeru obliges, heading back with one last hopeful glance over his shoulder. Mei chuckles as he darts off.

As soon as the bathroom door has slammed shut down the hall and the water has turned on, Miwa clutches her stomach and gasps for breath, head bent forward. “Oh, jeez, I was so scared.”

“Why? He’s just a twelve-year-old boy,” says Mei, though as a fellow older sister, she realizes the inherent terror in that statement as soon as she says it (and Miwa glares at her). She clears her throat. “He seems to like you, though. I’ll ask him what he thinks later, but he doesn’t have any real filter, so if he was repulsed by your presence, he would’ve said so.”

“That isn’t encouraging, Mei.”

Mei huffs—it would have been so to her. “Forgive me for trying to lighten the mood.”

Miwa rolls her eyes and bumps her foot against Mei’s, but her smile is wide enough that Mei doesn’t worry too much about it. “Well, he does seem like a pretty sweet kid.”

“You’ll have that opinion tested when you see him eat,” says Mei, but then Takeru steps back out, and they all smile as they settle into the kitchen, soon gathering around the table like a proper family.

*

It takes eight months of dating Miwa for Mei to follow up on her introductory offer of a haircut. Eight months are daunting, but they seem to have flown by, and while the two of them are still effectively in the honeymoon stage, right now Mei can’t wait for the next eight.

“It’s still free, right?” she asks Miwa as she twists the business card between her index finger and her thumb.

“The offer might have expired by now,” says Miwa, but with a light shove to the shoulder, she snorts and says, “Yes, of course.”

The process is simple enough. Miwa washes her hair, fingers running through Mei’s hair with a tenderness that makes Mei squeeze her eyes shut, and rinses in and out shampoo and conditioner. She situates her in a chair in front of the mirror with her hands on her shoulders. Takeru sits out in Miwa’s living room, waiting for the unveiling and watching the old volleyball tapes Miwa had provided.

“I imagine you don’t want just a trim,” she says, “or you would’ve done it yourself.”

“No,” confirms Mei. She watches herself in the mirror, eyeing the uneven sprawl of her dark brown hair across her shoulders—it’s been the same length almost her entire life, though she’d changed up the style often as a teenager. Now, though, with college applications approaching and the rest of her life ahead of her, she’s ready for a more dramatic shift. “I was thinking—” she extracts her hand from the dark smock tied around her to gesture along the line of her chin “—I would cut it to about here.”

“What, really?” Miwa blinks, face hovering behind Mei’s. Mei decides not to point out that this is the only time she’ll be taller than her—best not to piss off the hairstylist holding scissors. “I mean, it’s your choice, and it would look really nice on you, but this is kind of a big thing, you know?”

Mei takes a deep breath and lets it go. “I’m sure. If I change my mind later, it’ll just grow back,” she says, ignoring the slight quiver in her voice.

“All right, then.” Miwa meets Mei’s eyes in the mirror and smiles. “I can do that.”

Mei smiles as Miwa ties her hair back into a loose knot, presses the scissors to the back of her neck, and begins to snip.

*

(“This is, by far,” says Tooru, clutching an entire bottle of sake with paper-white knuckles, “the worst day of my life.”

“You have said that about a solid third of the days in your life," says Hajime, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose and the other poised to take the sake away when Tooru inevitably snaps.

“No, this is really it this time.”

Not ten feet away, his sister is dancing with the older sister of Kageyama Tobio, their fingers intertwined and their expressions more joyful than can be expressed in words. Miwa’s hair is in an elegant but short bun, and Mei has a flower pin tucked into her wavy bob. Their Western-style wedding dresses glimmer and sway around them. Oh yes, Tooru’s sister just had to legally bind herself to the one person in her age range related to Kageyama _fucking_ Tobio—minus some cousins, maybe, but the majority present seem to be very old or very young—and by extension tie the Kageyama brood to the Oikawa family for life.

Out of the corners of Tooru’s eyes is the menace Tobio himself. He isn’t smiling, because he’s Tobio, but he’s doing the closest thing to that as he watches his sister and Tooru’s. Tooru has spent the evening glaring at him. His mother, who adores Tobio, has been giving him reproachful looks in return, all of which Tooru has given a wide berth.

“I can’t believe my sister is legally related to Kageyama Tobio now,” says Tooru through his teeth. Which of course makes Tobio look over, because it seems Tooru has gotten enough liquor in him that he can’t check his volume. “Fuck off, I wasn’t talking to you.”

It could be worse, he reasons. It could be Ushiwaka’s sibling.

However, that person, as far as Tooru knows, does not exist, so it is, in fact, the worst possible scenario. He is once again justified in his ire.

Mei and Miwa’s first dance ends. Tooru brings himself to applaud along with everyone else, because like it or not, Mei is smiling wider than he has seen her smile in a while. The wives come marching over arm-in-arm, and Tooru spares a nod of greeting for Miwa, who has done nothing wrong except be related to Tobio.

“Congratulations,” he says flatly, earning him an elbow in the side from Hajime.

Miwa smiles, much more pleasant than her brother’s. “Thank you.”

“Thanks, Tooru. Hey,” says Mei with that shit-eating grin he’s known her to wear since he could first process what he could see, “doesn’t this mean Tobio is sort of your brother-in-law too now? By proxy or something?”

The bottle shatters. Later historians will remark upon the pure rage that must have encompassed someone in that moment for shards to still be embedded in the wall.)

**Author's Note:**

> very possibly this was all conceived for the punchline of pseudo-in-laws kageyama and oikawa, but i'm satisfied enough with the journey it took to get there that i'll never say.
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! if you have time to spare, comments & kudos are always appreciated <3
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/withlittlequill) | [tumblr](http://oikawalovebot.tumblr.com)


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